With the charitable .hiv TLD, corporate micro-giving has gone digital, raising funds for the end of AIDS. Its founding Registry, the charitable dotHIV initiative, is now looking for a successor to unleash the TLD’s full economic and social potential.

The upcoming auction provided by Innovative Auctions on June 3-4, 2015, brings the opportunity to purchase .hiv TLD, the first charitable TLD. It uses an innovative micro-giving system, to help generate web traffic through visible social responsibility. This approach and its social mission has brought the TLD universal support within the communities engaged in the fight against AIDS and 400+ clients, with pioneer users including global brands like Hyundai, TED, WIRED and Paulaner. .hiv is one of the poster children of ICANN’s New gTLD Program. The namespace is growing steadily and the TLD constantly attracts positive public and media attention on an international level.

“We have always run our organization with one vision in mind: we want the .hiv TLD to spark a global movement for the end of AIDS“, says Carolin Silbernagl, Co-Founder and CEO of the dotHIV Registry. “In the eight months since our launch we have gained a lot of insight about what it needs to reach this. The reason why we are offering .hiv for sale is because we see how successful it can be. However, we realized that dotHIV is not the right vehicle for the next phase – the TLD needs a bigger and more international home to truly spread its wings.”

The TLD comes with high economic and brand potential. Building on a global multi-billion dollar medical market and a strong and international community, the TLD has potential for long term growth, high quality premium names, and philanthropic benefits. Approaching .hiv as a corporate philanthropic engagement could have positive effects on public image and employee satisfaction for the buyer.

A Public Interest Commitment within the Registry Agreement binds the TLD to non-profit operations and the donation of all excess profit to HIV work, so independent of the buyer, the TLD will continue to support the HIV community. “Apart from that, the new owner is free to use .hiv as they please. Our approach is just one of many possible uses,” says Ms. Silbernagl.

“Because we care so much about the success of .hiv, we will do all we can to assure a smooth transition to the new owners,” says Ina Rosenstiel, Managing Director of the dotHIV Charity.

The support for the buyer will even go beyond that: thjnk, awarded Europe’s most efficient agency for creative advertisement and international lead advertiser for Audi, will stay on board to support .hiv with free creative campaigns after the transition, if desired by the new owner. “The idea for .hiv was born within my company,” says dotHIV Co-Founder and CEO of thjnk Dr. Michael Trautmann. “Our engagement for .hiv was always about making a dream a reality. At thjnk, we are looking forward to continuing our support and working with the new owner. It will be a fascinating task to build on the first successes and bring .hiv to scale.”

“Our main interest is to broadly announce this opportunity and thereby identify a capable owner that is as passionate about .hiv as we are,” says Ms. Silbernagl. “We are very grateful to Innovative Auctions for their support and the opportunity to build on their channel and network for this important step for our TLD.”

Please contact Innovative Auctions to request access to the data portal where you will find much more detail about the story, current status, and potential of .hiv.